


Peony heart

by WahlBuilder



Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Noir, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Surreal, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22238719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Viktor is locked inside his mind. Anton races to save him.
Relationships: Anton Rogue/Viktor Watcher
Kudos: 3





	Peony heart

Abundance finds out that instead of standing trial Viktor has gone rogue, but they don’t want to detonate the bomb in his head, he’s too valuable (literally, in monetary terms). So they activate a program that forces his consciousness inside his own mind. He’s locked there.

It backfires, because Viktor has built subconscious defenses throughout the years and he’s very paranoid, so, surprise, Abundance extractors can’t get in through his defenses. Nobody can.

Except for Anton, apparently.

Anton is no great hacker, but he’s the only one whom Viktor’s defenses allow inside (and even then, not completely). While the Abundance extractors are ready to bruteforce their way inside.

So Anton is racing against time: he has to find Viktor there, in Viktor’s own mindscape, get him out, and not let the extractors find Viktor.

Anton isn’t surprised at all to find that Vik’s mindscape is... Ophir. Towering, dominating, filled with seemingly impenetrable defences... But it’s their city, Viktor’s and Anton’s both. So Anton sneaks in. And it’s labyrinthine, and the streets are patrolled by... things. Terrible things — Viktor’s defenses. But Anton is a rogue, and it’s so, so familiar — sneaking away. And the city is aiding him, even as the sentinels try to find him. He has been Vik’s secret, and the city gives him a cloak of shadows.

The outermost circle of the city is unbearable, Anton almost gets caught: it’s very colorful in a bad way, overwhelming, and very, very loud, sirens blaring discordantly all the time. Is this what it feels like for Vik when he’s overwhelmed, when he’s having a meltdown?

Anton stumbles further, barely escaping the sentinels patrolling that part.

The next part is just as overwhelming — but in a different way. It’s gray, but not in Vik’s usual way. It’s bleak, slow, silent. Lifeless. Again, Anton nearly gets caught, because, while his own steps are silent (his breath is silent), the sentinels are quiet, too, and the grayness makes it so that no thing throws a shadow (and therefore, Anton’s cloak is useless).

He stumbles into a sentinel and has to run, and there are more and more sentinels after him — but then they are crushed by... something else. It is huge, monstrous, unlike the sentinels who are all angles and steel and sharpness. It has a human face, and though Anton has never seen the man, he knows who this is. The monster wearing the face of Vik’s mentor rushes through the sentinels, trampling them, tearing them apart, ruins buildings — everything, it just wants to destroy and it moves only in straight lines.

The closer it gets, the slower everything is, like in a real nightmare, even though it’s not _Anton’s_ nightmare.

Anton thinks he’s going to be ravaged, too — when he notices a delicate black thing hopping at his side on the wall. Trying to get his attention?

It’s one of the designs he’s seen in Vik’s sketchbook, a bird with a crown and an arrow in its beak. It flits forward, from one wall to another, and Anton follows after it through the winding streets until he gets into the next circle.

It is gray but not lifeless, and there are sounds, too. Anton slides down the wall, trying to catch his breath and waiting for his heart to calm down. The bird, flat as a drawing, hops onto his shoulder pressed to the wall.

So, there are sentinels patrolling the streets and they would destroy any intruder including him. There is the monster destroying everything (has Vik been living with this monster in his head all these years?). But some part of the city, some part of Vik, knows he’s here. Tries to protect him.

Anton hangs his head — and stares under his feet. Because his feet... Well. He gets up and makes a few steps experimentally, touches a wall — each step, each touch leads to color growing through the city, in abstract swirls and splashes of watercolor, and bursts of flames. So is this how Vik sees him? What he means for Vik?

He looks down the back alley — and notices another speck of color. It is tiny, and it’s not where Anton has come from. It’s not from him.

The bird flies to that speck and pecks at it, then swallows it — and the bird is now filled with brilliant blue. Anton chuckles.

There are two persistent rumors about him in Ophir: that he will always find out about a person’s transgressions and that he can find anyone, anywhere in the city. And both rumors are true.

He can find anyone. He certainly can find the man he loves, regardless of his crimes.

And he has an idea where Vik might be.

He scales the nearest building, and looks around — and spots another bit of color. He runs the rooftops, filled for a moment with the joy of running, the politics of the city left behind. A tall sentinel notices him — but it has to move through the labyrinth, and Anton is faster. He tumbles down onto the street level, spots another of Vik’s designs hopping on the wall: a sinuously sleek dog. It eats the spot of color — red this time. He pets it on its head and continues his search.

This is his city — but it lives by different rules. The rules of Vik’s mind. It is ordered — but “ordered” doesn’t mean “straight lines”. It means a specific logic, Vik’s logic, Vik’s order. It is twisted also, broken: sometimes a street falls into a gaping abyss, sometimes a building crumbles right under Anton’s feet — and yet the city lights up, too. A building crumbles — but a rainbow-colored narrow ramp allows Anton to descent without injuries. An abyss is crossed by a flowering tree branch.

In another mind, the most protected area would be in the center of things — but it is Vik. Conventional logic is vulnerable — Vik knows it. So Anton follows not to the center, but using bits and signs and details he knows. Both of them know. It’s not only splashes of color and Vik’s designs, but familiar landmarks amid the universal gray: the warehouse where they had the shootout where they first met each other face to face, the dark facade of a cafe Anton knows Vik and Henry spent so much time years ago when Henry was recovering, ruins of a home that only faintly resemble the house where Jeff’s biological family lives...

Anton has to dodge the monster several times more, urging the designs to swallow the specks of color that lead to Vik. The monster can’t find Vik. It is trying to get to the center, it seems to think that Vik is there. Anton must keep it thinking so.

He reaches his destination suddenly: it is an ordinary street, back in physical world, — and then he sees it. A bloom in the middle of gray. It is not the whole house, but only the important part — Vik’s sanctuary.

Though it is difficult to say that it is a house: it is an overgrown bush of peonies, those gentle pinkish-white with red splashes on the petals. They are giant here, easily bigger than Anton. The nest, the ball of the stems doesn’t have thorns, but the stems tighten when Anton tries to get closer.

“Vitya. It’s me. Please let me in?” He tries to keep his voice low, so that the monster doesn’t hear him.

Color blooms under his feet — and flows towards the peonies, like paint trickling away.

He goes closer, and the peonies tighten — but then small, gentle tendrils unfurl towards him.

He reaches out to them, lets them wind around his arms, slide up his shoulders, close over his chest, pressing tight. He closes his eyes — and they pull him in.

He opens his eyes in an apartment. It’s his own but also Vik’s, both merging together. Parts of the walls are colored, parts are covered with Vik’s designs... Some are covered with Vik’s own tattoos. Yet others are plain gray. There is a certain aroma in the air, Vik’s favorite green tea shower gel and Anton’s own aftershave. And... chocolate cookies?

He goes through winding halls, comfortable half-lit rooms (an office, the guest room from his apartment). The amount of details is astonishing — but then, Vik has an exceptional memory.

There are breaks, too, pieces as though reflected in a broken mirror, parts misaligned.

The peonies are still clinging to Anton, covering his arms, growing through his skin, his own tattoos alive. He doesn’t mind.

“Sweet one? Where are you?”

The bedroom is smaller than in reality, and blending both bedrooms from their apartments: the walls are pristine like in Vik’s, the bed is the big one from Anton’s.

And a lone figure seated on it, curled up with his arms around his knees. The familiar gray jacket on him — but also Anton’s own black thrown over it.

The peonies on Anton unfurl as he is flooded with relief.

“Родной мой. There you are.”

Vik lifts his head.

Anton almost reels back. Vik is so, so very young — maybe like Ez? Long, lanky, thin, his eyes haunted, a fringe of dark hair falling on his forehead. No silver strands in it.

And he’s looking right through Anton, and then hides his face in his arms again. “Quiet! He’ll find us.”

He sounds even younger than Ez.

Anton rakes his brains: Vik is the same age as Mel, and he said he served for twenty yea— fuck, he is younger than Mel. Блядство.

Anton has to control himself, he has to: the surroundings are receptive to him. (Because Vik is receptive?)

He sits down on the bed. “Sweet thing, I will protect you from him, I promise.”

“No. You can’t. Nobody can. Nobody except...” Vik trails off, his arms tightening around his knees.

“I have claws and fangs, and the city is on our side,” he says gently.

Vik looks up again — not at him, he can’t maintain eye contact (yet?), but at his hands. Takes one — Vik’s palm is unusually warm. He turns it this way and that.

Anton says: “Press on the pad of the palm.”

The pressure is so weak (he can see other signs, too: hollow cheeks, the haunted gaze — young Vik knew hunger). And the claws slide out.

Vik’s face brightens just a little. “Like a cat!”

Anton smiles. “Yes.”

Vik reaches up, touches Anton’s cheek. “Soft kitty.”

“Yes. But only for you. I will claw anyone who tries to hurt you. And I’m not afraid of him.”

Vik’s gaze focuses on him just for a moment, then drops to their hands. “It’s safe here. I don’t want to get out.”

“It’s safe now, but he’s going to find you sooner or later.” And the extractors will do, too. “We have to leave the city.”

“I don’t want to!”

But Vik doesn’t push him away. He continues exploring with his hands: strokes a peony shoot coming from Anton’s forearm like a vein, traces a gentle petal with a fingertip...

“This is not a place for you, sweet thing. It will destroy,” he gestures around with his free hand, “all this. You will turn gray. It’s because the city does this to everyone sooner or later. Not to mention him.” He licks his lips. “But if you really want to stay, I will stay with you. Forever. If you want.”

“Everyone leaves,” Vik says quietly, evenly. “Can’t let anyone in. They leave and take something away.”

“I won’t leave.” Anton swallows a lump in his throat. “Not this time.”

“Like him?”

His blood runs cold. “No! Not like him. No. I won’t hurt you, I... I will try not to. Even if I want to, I won’t. My dear. Here.” He opens his shirt and then takes his hand away from Vik and pries his ribcage open and reaches inside. It is silky, surprisingly, and warm (he expected something shriveled or on fire). He takes it out: a big red, bleeding peony, closed for now. He places it into Vik’s hands. It’s still pulsating. “Here. If you feel that I’m a threat to you, if you fear me, crush it.”

Vik holds it like something precious. “It’s beautiful.” And then Anton’s breath catches when Vik brings it to his lips.

He can feel the kiss.

“I will keep it safe,” Vik says, lips stained with blood. Then he opens his own shirt, his own chest, and places it inside.

The animal designs start screeching silently. Vik looks up, face pale with such fear the likes of which Anton has never seen on him. “He’s here!”

Anton buttons Vik’s shirt quickly, then closes the gray jacket. “Then we must go. Do you want to leave?”

Vik looks at him — and his features are older, sharper not from hunger but from the closeness of a hunt, even though the fear lingers. “Yes. I trust you.” And Vik holds out his hand.

He takes it (it’s colder), and they jump off the bed. The designs follow them out of the apartment, and the giant peonies are angry-red.

Anton waves, and soon dozens of sentinels are in front of them. “Listen up! You will split in four groups. Two will be harassing the monster. He’s stupid, but he moves in straight lines, so you have to be fast and make a lot of noise. The third group stays here and makes a ruckus. The fourth — ”

“No, Tosha,” Vik says in his low voice. “Five groups. Two stay behind, one here, two with us.”

Anton grins, showing his fangs. “Let’s play cat and mouse.”

The plan works for a while (both of them feel death of each sentinel). They manage to get to the outermost ring, and Vik is very pale, gripping Anton’s hand so tightly Anton feels bones shift. The assault of colors is unbearable — until it stops. Completely.

And they hear heavy breathing right behind them.

(Vik is trembling, young again, a fucking _child_.)

Anton turns, slowly, without letting go of Vik’s hand. Places himself between Vik and the monster.

Its body is many bodies fused together, vaguely canine and yet also... Like something else. Many things. A chair with restraints, a syringe, a gun, other unspeakable things. A bed that doesn’t speak of comfort.

It is — one of its bodies — wearing the dress uniform of the Bureau, the one that looks seemingly good, the one that Anton hates so much. Its face... Is many faces, though one repeats many times.

Anton bares his fangs, growls low. “Leave him! He’s not yours!”

The monster rises on its many limbs, blotting out everything. “Oh, you think he’s yours! It’s me who’s been with him all this time. I didn’t leave him when things became tough.”

The monster is right, yes. But it’s also wrong.

“I’m not leaving him now!” Anton says defiantly. “He’s mine all the way through. My Vitya! And our city!”

“Little kitty,” it sneers with many voices — and Anton gasps in pain.

He looks down at the widening hole in his chest, then at the guns in the monster’s hands.

And starts laughing.

The monster becomes smaller. “Wha... What are you laughing at?”

And he can’t stop. He laughs and it rolls through the city and fills it and the colors and sounds are his, streets are his, Vitya is his; Anton grows larger, stretches luxuriantly as his blood pours onto the streets and the monster starts sinking, its mouths choking on blood.

“It is that,” Anton says, Ophir says, “I am his in turn, and my heart is in him.” And he opens his jaws and clamps them on the tiny monster.

He swallows then curls around Vik. Vik strokes his fur. “Good kitty.”

Anton purrs. “Tastes terrible. Shall we go home?”

Vik throws his arms around his neck — as much as he can anyway — rubs his face on his fur. “Yes.”


End file.
